What, You're Still Not Tired of the RA Board Elections?

That's good because there's yet another Q&A forum with candidates tonight at 7pm at the Nature House, 11450 Glade Drive. Be there with your snow shovels.

In the meantime, you can read two articles the Connection "news-paper" wrote about the ARCH candidates forum and a follow-up interview with the three candidates that did not attend. Or, two letters to the editor in the Fairfax Times "news-paper" that neatly cancel each other out!

The Times also did a story about how contentious this election has been, at least by Reston standards. But it largely glossed over how the whole issue of development looms over this election. Consider this paragraph in the letter from Amy Justice of Save Brown's Chapel, who urges residents to look at Dear Leader's current vision of Reston:

Simon's vision for Reston is firmly focused on increasing density. In a recent letter to the editor, "Advice to Density Deniers," Simon states, "It is bad manners, to say the least, for a resident to lobby to prevent development that a developer has 'by right' to develop." Simon sees the future of Reston from a developer's perspective, having been one for more years than many of us have been alive, while homeowners see it from a resident's perspective. What Simon and the other developers need to understand is that residents live with the results, while developers move on.

We personally believe that some degree of redevelopment is necessary and desirable -- to us, the question is what it winds up looking like (we don't need any more off-the-shelf architectural dreck lining the Toll Road, or ugly above-ground parking garages becoming the signature landmark of the Reston skyline) and how it functions within the context of the existing infrastructure. But it's good to see that people are realizing how high the stakes are in this election.